This week we featured research on industrial policy, brain drain, climate conflict, and more...
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This week we released our VoxDevLit on Sanitation Infrastructure. In this VoxDevLit, Senior Editors Britta Augsburg, Andrew Foster, and Molly Lipscomb systematically review economic research on the welfare impacts of sanitation investments and the effectiveness of strategies to expand coverage. Watch the launch event and download the VoxDevLit here.
In Brazil, Florence Kondylis, Arianna Legovini, Kate Vyborny, Astrid Zwager, Luiza Andrade discuss how women-only spaces offer a quick fix for those facing higher risk of harassment but reflect and may reinforce the idea that women are responsible for preventing their own victimisation.
Industrial policy is often discussed through high-level narratives and flagship initiatives, yet its implementation—particularly at the subnational level—remains opaque. Hanming Fang, Ming Li, and Guangli Lu use large language models (LLMs) to systematically analyse over three million government documents from 2000 to 2022, documenting four sets of facts on China’s industrial policies.
In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Catia Batista and Caroline Theoharides discuss their recent evidence review with Daniel Han, Johannes Haushofer, Gaurav Khanna, David McKenzie, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak and Dean Yang on the complex dynamics of high-skilled migration, challenging the assumption that the emigration of talented individuals from low-income countries inevitably leads to detrimental brain drain.
As climate change stretches Nigeria’s dry seasons and disrupts traditional grazing patterns, tensions between nomadic herders and settled farmers fuel violent conflict—most intensely just before the planting season. Jeffrey Bloem, Amy Damon, David Francis, and Harrison Mitchell show how repeated exposure to violence shifts labour patterns differently by gender and across agricultural seasons.
When it comes to labour laws, enforcement is often challenging, especially in developing countries. But what if enforcing regulations against just a few companies could influence dozens of others to comply as well? Samuel Berlinski and Jessica Gagete-Miranda present evidence on Brazil's disability employment quotas, revealing how strategic enforcement can create powerful ripple effects that multiply policy impact beyond directly targeted firms.
In Ethiopia, Kibrom Abay, Hailemariam Ayalew, Zelalem Terfa, Joseph Karugia, and Clemens Breisinger reveal that typical survey methods are significantly undercounting actual livestock numbers.
The 2025 CEPR Policy Forum in Paris brought together economists to examine the evolving world of work. A major theme was the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on labour markets. In his compelling keynote, David Autor presented a provocative and hopeful vision of how AI could reshape employment—not just by replacing tasks, but by amplifying human expertise and potentially rebuilding the middle class. David joined VoxTalks to discuss the key insights from his keynote, which we have featured on the VoxDev website.
Elsewhere in development:
- Key findings from a series of studies on structured learning programmes in South Africa - Stephen Taylor, Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, Bianca Böhmer and Anna Murru on the What Works Hub for Global Education.
- Simon van Teutem on Our World in Data: There are now more than half a billion mobile money accounts in the world, mostly in Africa — here's why this matters.
- A Blueprint for Tackling the Debt and Development Crises and Creating the Financial Foundations for a Sustainable People-Centered Global Economy.
- The impact of Chinese preferences on Africa by Maximiliano Mendez-Parra on ODI.
- And ACET are hiring a Director of Communications.